


Agony/Bliss

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Intersections [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Desperation, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Masochism, Past Abuse, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Pregnancy, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 20:57:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Loki's always known himself to be a masochist.Now, it seems, more so than ever.Requires knowledge of The Game of Intersections up to Chapter 14.





	Agony/Bliss

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't fluffy, but it's... Two extremely terrible, nasty people continuing to be terrible and nasty, but also being domestic with one another? This one skirts the line with soft Frostmaster, and may be too much for you if you prefer the proper, hard Frostmaster.
> 
> This is part of the Intersections 'verse, and requires you to have read up to chapter 14 of The Game Of Intersections.

Norns, how it makes his heart ache.

The boy is sweating enough to fill pails, his body trembling, and Loki has to _pour_ seiðr from his fingertips and let it seep into Lionel’s flesh, creating a simple set of veins from the boy to Loki himself: a telepathic connection, clean and neatly made, that allows Loki to take on the bulk of the pain he is feeling instead of allowing the boy to feel it himself.

It hurts. The pain is unfathomable, in all truth, and were Loki a younger man, uninured to agony, he knows his vision would be failing him, and that perhaps he would be swaying on his feet, but he is managing to keep a control upon the pain and swallow it back. Carrying on his vague conversation with Sidney is some distraction, but—

“Ungh, Leroy?” Lionel asks, and Loki feels his heart _pang_. It pains him, to see how young these two things are, so young, so sweet, so _innocent_ in the schemes of their lives, and to have ripped this boy away from his lover, from the man that would be his _husband_ were it not for the foolish prejudices still lingering in his time on Midgard…

“Mr Turner isn’t here, Lionel,” Loki whispers, and even as he speaks, he gently curls his fingers through Lionel’s hair, feeling the softness of his thick curls. Will the children of Loki and En Dwi look like this, with such beautiful warm eyes, such thick hair? Could the children of Loki ever seem so _vulnerable_? Even more so that his dead children, six dead children, six— “You’re on Sakaar. Do you recall?” Lionel’s eyelashes flutter, but then he relaxes again, and Loki can feel the waves of pain within his skull shift and soften slightly.

He says as much to Sidney, offers him some bare comfort although there is still some time to go on Lionel’s sentence where pain is concerned – another day or so, at the very least, but at least it is receding. Loki has known this model of UT to take over a _week_ to resettle itself, and while with humans it is ordinarily faster…

How could he?

Isn’t it bad enough to parade these young creatures before his eyes, let him see agony on the faces of features just like En Dwi’s, and with some of them as _children_ , barely having reached their adulthood—

That isn’t fair of him.

He feels En Dwi’s energy out in the corridor as Sidney goes to answer the knock upon the door, and he inhales slowly through his nose, wishing only that things could be different, that he might have more control over En Dwi’s obscenity. If he could send these young things home, he would – each of them, _now_ , already—

And yet he can’t.

Loki knows he can’t.

And knowing that he can’t…

Sidney slips back into the room, and Loki gestures for him to sit down with Lionel, to care for him for just a few moments as he takes up with En Dwi, as he speaks with him. Loki doesn’t want to. He has no desire to, in all truth – in all his life, he has not desired less to be in a room with En Dwi, even in the beginning, when so much as a glance from En Dwi’s honey-coloured eyes made his skin thrill and his heart beat faster, when he felt with every passing second he would soon be devoured.

The fear is gone, now.

Not because En Dwi won’t hurt him – Loki is used to pain, and it doesn’t deter him. Not because Loki now knows how to hurt En Dwi back – Loki had known how to do that before he _knew_ he knew how.

But it’s different, now.

There is no fear of some greater permanence, of death or of eternal torture. This is his permanence now: this is everything.

“Don’t you look at me like that. Don’t you dare,” Loki says as soon as he enters the room. En Dwi has an amused smile on his face, his _Grandmaster’s_ smile, lofty and condescending and uniquely superior, and it makes Loki’s blood heat to a smoulder in his veins, scorching the underside of his skin. En Dwi arches one eyebrow, and he doesn’t see precisely how angry Loki is, or perhaps he doesn’t care, and Loki moves across the room without remembering to draw in the haze of magic that bursts around him, thick upon the air. He knows not what it is, if it is the depth of his power or the way that it crackles into the air, but En Dwi’s smile falters, and he looks at Loki’s face with more seriousness, this time. “I forbade it. I forbade it, En Dwi – I _forbade_ it, and you _dared_ —”

“Dared, huh?” En Dwi repeats, and then he _laughs_! He _laughs_ , and it’s slightly forced, as if he’s surprised, that Loki should be angry with him. “I, uh… Uh huh. This is my game, baby. This is my planet.” Loki suppresses the urge to spit out laughter in response, and a flare of magic thrums over his very own skin, making him sway slightly with the spin of his head. “I, haha, I really appreciate the cute little act you got going here, where you act like you’re in charge, but, baby, I _know_ you.”

“You _promised_ me,” Loki says. And isn’t that what makes him ache, through it all? That he promised Loki, thrice over, that he _would not_ , promised than he _understood_ Loki’s feelings, and did it anyway. Such is Loki’s foolishness, with this monstrous, Eldritch creature from the depths of space, thinking he might _care_. “You promised me, En Dwi, that you wouldn’t give him the UT.”

“Baby, he wanted it!” En Dwi says, spreading his hands, as if it matters. “He _asked_ for it!”

“You promised,” Loki retorts, and he sees the sudden spread of confusion on his face, the _bafflement_. Imagine, the horror, at trying to understand a feeling that is not one’s own! Why bother, when you have all the power in the very universe at your fingertips, and when no one has the power to stop you? He sees the change in posture, the way he returns to condescension, to faux sweetness, and it makes him feel like his very rib cage is tightening to crush his _organs_ —

“Aw, is— Are my little Lolo’s feelings hurt?” Loki bristles, feeling heat in his blood, feeling the urge to grow bigger teeth and broader shoulders, to rip En Dwi’s _neck_ from his body – it isn’t as if he won’t get up again anyway, so why shouldn’t he bite the hand that feigns to feed him? “C’mere, let Daddy kiss it bett—"

Loki’s hand flashes where his wrenching teeth cannot, and these days are different than once they were – there was a time when even a flying punch from Loki would do nothing to En Dwi, but those times are gone. Loki’s palm rings hard against En Dwi’s cheek, his head whipping to one side, and then he stumbles back from Loki.

The satisfaction in Loki’s chest blooms like some carnivorous flower, and yet it is tainted by the desperate anger he feels, the _fury_.

“That…” En Dwi hesitates, and Loki tilts his head slightly to the side, watching En Dwi’s fingers draw over his own cheek, at the skin that hasn’t changed in colour, but that must be stinging. En Dwi stares at his own fingers, as if astonished that something might _hurt_ him, physically. There’s even a moment where his lips quirk up at their edges in excitement, and then En Dwi’s expression stiffens, and he finishes, “… wasn’t nice.” Power is ringing from En Dwi now, too, and Loki can feel the serpentine shift of his own magic against En Dwi’s primordial thrum, and at any other time, this mutual fury would be erotic; for En Dwi, at this moment, perhaps it is.

“I couldn’t care in the slightest,” Loki whispers. He’s aware of the shake in his voice, aware of the way he has an urge to do… To do _something_ , and yet what, he knows not, for a thousand instincts accost him at once – to rip En Dwi’s throat out and eat it; to launch himself at En Dwi’s body and shove his tongue down his throat; to flee from here and never come back; to leave the very planet in scorched flames behind him. “Get out.”

“Excuse me?”

“ _Get out.”_

En Dwi’s mouth opens again, and Loki lunges, moving to smack him again, but En Dwi catches him by the wrist and then throws him backward, pinning him up against the wall. He doesn’t use his hand to do it, but keeps his fingers tightly wrapped around Loki’s wrist, his forearm pressed hard against neck, so that their bodies are up against one another. It makes Loki shiver, and he hates how his gaze flits down to En Dwi’s mouth, at the way he feels his chin tilt back just slightly.

“You don’t even comprehend why I’m angry,” Loki whispers.

“You don’t seem that angry to me,” En Dwi says, and his other hand slides between Loki’s legs, but then he hisses, wrenching it away as Loki turns the very flesh to ice too cold to touch. “Kiki, this isn’t cute—”

“You tell me you would see me with children,” Loki whispers, “your children. And then you would have a boy with _your_ countenance tortured in front of me, and see why I might be angry.” En Dwi scowls at him, and Loki can see he understands not: he struggles, trying to throw off En Dwi’s arm, but En Dwi presses down harder, squeezing Loki’s neck as if he forgets that Loki needs not to breathe to live, as if he forgets that Loki cares not.

“I think, baby, that you’re too sensitive,” En Dwi murmurs. “I think we need to, uh, to take you away from this situation and—”

“Try it,” Loki says. “Try to take me away from that boy before his pain is through, and see how you fare.” En Dwi drops him hard, and Loki stumbles, his shoulders falling back against the wall.

“Me and you, baby, we’re, uh— We’re gonna talk about this,” En Dwi whispers. It shows remarkable restraint, and it makes Loki feel the slightest bit of warmth tug at his stomach, even as his anger fades, and there’s no fear, but there is an anticipation, curiously strong within him.

“Indeed?” Loki asks, rubbing at his neck: the hard flesh there has given way to the bruise, that he knows, and he exhales slightly. En Dwi is looking at him with such hard eyes, and Loki only _wishes_ it hurt him, but he knows well that it doesn’t. He knows En Dwi isn’t hurt, and he knows that he doesn’t care, and that it’s his own fault for expecting otherwise.

“Yeah,” En Dwi murmurs. There’s a foreboding air to it, and Loki knows that without _doubt_ , there will be some awful horror awaiting him tonight, when he has finished with Lionel’s care. He knows.

It doesn’t matter.

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

Loki lies back on the bed, his hands loosely folded over his belly, his gaze upon the ceiling. The door opens with a quiet click, and he doesn’t look at En Dwi as he enters, focusing on the soft golden sheen of the ceiling’s surface, and he doesn’t flinch as En Dwi’s hand slides from his calf up the length of his thigh, under the skirt of his robe.

“I, uh, I don’t like it when you have tantrums with me.”

“I don’t recall throwing a tantrum, as of recent,” Loki murmurs. “I recall taking a dagger you pierced through my belly and holding it aloft – so sorry that offended your sensibilities, En Dwi.” En Dwi’s hand grips tight at the bone of Loki’s jaw, and he turns Loki’s face to look at him, staring him in the eye.

“When I’m done with you, baby, you’re going to, uh… You are going to _beg_ for me to give you—”

“I’m not going to beg you for anything,” Loki replies. “Torture me until your hurt feelings are soothed, and we shall see how we fare.”

“Baby, why are you— Why are you _being_ like this? You said you’d let me, uh, that you’d let me play my game, you said that you wouldn’t, uh, _interfere_.” En Dwi’s fingers squeeze a little bit together, and Loki feels the crescent stab of his fingernails against his skin. Loki doesn’t move, remaining quite still in his place.

“That was before I saw them,” Loki mutters. “You’ve no idea the feeling it evokes in me, the detective especially. I look at them and I feel… I feel so achingly empty, and I keep…” Loki hesitates for a moment, trying to run the thoughts over in his head, and he closes his eyes for just a moment. He feels his own magic coursing not merely through his veins, but through the spread of the room, catching on the natural ebbs and flows of energy upon Sakaar, out into the tendrils of the universe itself…

As a young man, Loki experienced future pains, saw flashes and shots of the universe to come. He saw his lips being sewn shut before it ever happened, felt the ripping agony of the needle through his lips; he saw Fenrisúlfr dying before it ever happened, before Thor’s bastard child saw fit to run Loki’s son through with a blade; and now, now, he sees Va Nee, a beautiful vision of blue softness, her hair black and curly about her head, her eyes pure white.

En Dwi is looking down at him as Loki opens his eyes once more.

“I see our daughter,” Loki murmurs. “She has honey-coloured eyes, and black curls, and she has your brow. The same dimpling when she smiles… And I see _them_ , En Dwi, and—”

“You want it,” En Dwi snaps, his voice sharp and full of acid, ripping his hand away from Loki’s chin like Loki burns him. “You want it so— So _badly_ , baby, then why aren’t you? You want to be pregnant, you want… You want this baby, this— V-Va _Nee_ , I don’t…” He trails off, and Loki stares at him, fascinated at the half-interrupted sentences, the way he loses his train of thought, and it makes him _ache_.

“You don’t like the name?” Loki asks. “I didn’t pick it.”

“Who did? Me?”

“It’s written in stone,” Loki says simply, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “It is to be. It will be. It is.” He sees the furrow in En Dwi’s silver brow, and he thinks of Va Nee’s in parallel, the blackness of her brow in comparison…

“Tan-Tan has, uh, has future sight as well. I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t _get_ it,” En Dwi repeats again, and Loki can see the confusion on his face, the desperate irritation, the way he clenches his hands against his thighs and then loosens them again, and he knows not what to say. “If you want this baby, then why— Why can’t we have it now?”

“I need time,” Loki murmurs. “To put our farm in order, the windmill, and I should like to have the second continent… There are more farms I would build, more woods, a few towns and villages, even. I don’t put it off to spite you, nor because I have no wish to engage. I want everything finished, before we conceive.”

“I can finish it for you,” En Dwi says. Loki’s stomach shifts, and he leans forward, reaching out and drawing his hand over En Dwi’s chest, his palm against En Dwi’s sternum. He can feel the beat of En Dwi’s heart, feel the heat of his blood.

“No,” Loki says, shaking his head. “Think of it as— A bird, a nest. I must roost.”

“I like, uh, I like the animal in you,” En Dwi murmurs, reaching out and drawing his fingers through Loki’s hair. “But these guys, they’re— They’re not _ours_. They’re not even mine! You know, they’re just… They’re _toys_.”

“They’re not,” Loki murmurs. “You know that they’re people – that’s why you want to play with them.” En Dwi’s lips twitch, and he gives Loki an appraising look as he pulls Loki closer by the hair, and Loki lets himself fall into En Dwi’s lap, his arms curling around his neck.

“How is it, that, uh, however long we’ve been together, and you still surprise me?” En Dwi asks, and there’s a note of tenderness that Loki is unfamiliar with in his voice. It makes him smile, a fluttering making itself known in his chest, and he cups En Dwi’s cheeks, his thumbs pressing against his cheekbones.

“Five thousand years,” Loki supplies immediately. “That’s over half my lifetime, thus far. Are you frightened?”

“Of what, sweetheart?” En Dwi asks, and Loki leans in, their noses brushing against one another.

“Punish me,” Loki says. “I need it.” He aches for it, in truth – he wants for the pain, wants to lose himself in it and give himself over to it, to whatever weeks-long torture En Dwi has designed, until naught matters but En Dwi, and Loki, and _home_.

“You want me to, uh, to punish you for wanting my baby?” En Dwi asks, his breath hot against Loki’s lips. “Seems, uh, seems like I’d be going against my best interests to do that.” His voice is soft, and it makes Loki’s skin thrill, his fingers drawing through En Dwi’s hair, his fingernails dragging over the skin.

“No,” Loki murmurs. “I don’t want to feel anything else for a while – I just… You had something planned, when you were angry. Don’t pretend you didn’t. Just execute your plans as you would have. I want the pain.” En Dwi frowns at him, the barest concern in his face, and Loki says, “Why won’t you give it to me? I’m asking for it.”

“Baby, I don’t like this,” En Dwi says. “I’m not gonna…”

“You wanted to hurt me when you felt it would punish me,” Loki whispers. “And yet when I _request_ it, you would deny me? Curious. What devotion have you?” En Dwi’s hand grabs for his throat, squeezing, and Loki keeps his gaze on En Dwi’s. “There: I’ve stirred your anger to a flame once more. Execute your plans.”

“You—” En Dwi stops, and then again, there’s that curious light in his eyes, that beautiful shine. There’s a distaste twisting his mouth, wrinkling his nose, as he says, “You want this, baby? Really?”

“No,” Loki says. “I need it.”

“It’s meant to _hurt_.”

“I want it to.” En Dwi presses his lips together, and then he draws his lips over Loki’s, his mouth warm and slick and perfect, and Loki lets himself sink into it, lets himself be taken over by the movement of En Dwi’s mouth and the slide of his hands on Loki’s body, the way Loki feels as if his very skin will give away for En Dwi’s touch.

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

As Loki lies on his back on the bed, the sheet tangled about his ankles, En Dwi plays his fingers over the fabric of his calves, back and forth over the cool skin. Loki inhales, watching him. He can see that En Dwi is thinking – it’s rare for him to be quite so silent, and it’s curious, to see him _pensive_ , quiet.

“I don’t like it,” En Dwi says.

“Oh,” Loki replies.

“But I’m gonna do it. And when I, uh, when I take you out of the tank…” En Dwi frowns slightly, his lips twisting, and he grips Loki’s calf. “No more of this.” Loki blinks at him.

“No more of what?”

“No more— No more, uh, no more punishments. Not unless you ask for ‘em.” Very pointedly, En Dwi isn’t looking at Loki’s face, and is instead focusing on the smooth, unblemished skin of Loki’s leg, his fingers making an easy pattern there. His hands are hot, as always, although they don’t feel as hot as they did in years past, he doesn’t think. Perhaps he’s imagining it, but Loki himself, he feels, is running hotter.

Loki feels, as he never has before, as if they are upon the brink of some unspeakable change, as if he is standing on the very edge of a cliff, and unsure whether stepping backward or falling forward will lead to his ruin.

“Very well,” Loki says, and the Grandmaster’s hand rises higher, squeezing the meat of his thigh.

“You should, uh, you should hurry it up, after. With the, um. You know. Fixing up your, uh, your second continent.”

“Such impatience,” Loki murmurs. “I should send word to Taneleer that you’re getting even worse.”

“My baby, talking to my brother, and _willingly_? Gee. Call, uh, call the presses.”

“It’s _Taneleer_ that dislikes _me_ ,” Loki replies, and when En Dwi turns to look at him again he smiles, squeezing.

“Well,” he murmurs, softly. “I, uh, I really have some plans for you, honey.” En Dwi smirks a little, and he looks at Loki with his lips parted, a glow in his golden eyes… How much of it, Loki wonders, is a fiction, an act for Loki’s benefit? When he just said he didn’t like the idea?

“Very well,” Loki murmurs, and he feels a shiver run up his spine. Again, no fear – it is more anticipation, electrifying his very skin. He is excited, he is _aching_ , and he wants for it, wants to let himself sink beneath the ocean of his own agony—

“Baby,” En Dwi says, and he suddenly grips Loki by the hair so tightly that Loki chokes out a noise, his neck straightening as En Dwi wrenches his head back _hard_. Oh, and there it is – a blink of a sensation that is _almost_ fear as En Dwi’s power fills the room, rippling over Loki’s skin like the teeth of some hungry beast. “ _Baby_ ,” En Dwi says, his mouth against Loki’s chin, and then Loki feels _his_ teeth, and he groans. He is wet and open and _finished_ , and yet here he is, being worked to readiness once again.

“What?” Loki asks.

“I _love_ you,” En Dwi says, and he bites his away into Loki’s mouth, bites hard enough that there is blood on his chin, and Loki moans, and then he bites him back. En Dwi’s blood is a hot, bitter tang on his tongue, tastes like stardust and galaxies—

And Loki lets En Dwi pin him back onto the bed again.

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

It is days later that Loki stumbles from the tank En Dwi had designed for the duration of his torture, after several days, and En Dwi hooks him under the arms and carries him into the bedroom, carries him exhausted and with the pain slowly seeping from his body. Agony had been no word for it – Loki’s flesh had burned and then frozen and then burned anew, repeatedly, as phoenix fire, ever reconstituting—

And yet even now, the pain feels incomplete.

“You took me out early,” Loki slurs out. “What day is it?”

“I, uh, I just got word,” En Dwi murmurs, and Loki feels them sink into a warm bath that licks pleasantly at his skin. Loki exhales, collapsing against the thatch of hair upon En Dwi’s chest, his face mashed against the skin. “There’s a convoy coming, honey.”

“A convoy?” Loki asks, confused. He is hazy and out-of-touch, his very head spinning.

“From, uh, from Asgard,” En Dwi murmurs against his hair. Loki groans, desperately, and he clutches at En Dwi’s hips.

“Put me back in,” he begs, and En Dwi laughs.

“You, uh, you’ve got a few hours before they arrive,” En Dwi murmurs, and Loki sighs, leaning back and letting himself rest in En Dwi’s lap, straddling him despite being dizzy and confused, still recovering. “You feel better?”

“My mind is blissfully blank,” Loki admits, and for the first time, he looks at En Dwi’s face.

“Golly, you’re— I gotta tell ya, baby, you’re kooky.” Loki closes his eyes as he feels the sponge run over his back, warm water dribbling down over his skin, and he exhales. But En Dwi’s smile is warm, and fond, and Loki feels as if he might melt into naught but molten gold upon his chest. His eyelids flutter, and when he collapses forward, blanketing En Dwi’s chest again with his head upon his chest, En Dwi says, “Nap a little, Lo-Lo. I’ll, uh… I’ll wake you up an hour before they get here. Let you get ready.”

“I don’t know what to wear,” Loki says miserably.

“I’ll pick you something out,” En Dwi offers.

“I know not to wear _that_ ,” Loki replies. En Dwi laughs, and Loki feels himself smile against his skin.

“Tan-Tan mentioned him, last time he was here,” En Dwi murmurs. “The blond one, Fanny.”

“Don’t call him that,” Loki murmurs. “And his golden hair grows closer to silver by the day.” The fatigue is settling upon him, making him sway forward, and his eyes close as he relaxes further, letting sleep swallow him whole.

✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰

When Loki glances toward the doubles in the throne room, the emotion he feels is distant, detached. He feels affection when he looks at Ian, feels warmth when he looks at the new one – David – and even thinking of Sidney and Lionel, there’s merely a comfortable twang of sensation.

There is no desperation, no want to coddle boiling beneath the surface.

There is merely—

Polite endearment.

“Pageantry,” Loki mutters, as the two double doors of the throne room thunder open, Thor leading Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg into the room, and with a whole cabal of young warriors bringing up their rear. _Convoy_ , indeed.

Behind him, he hears En Dwi chuckle, and Loki puts out his arms for Hugin and Munin to land upon. Distantly, he is aware that these two birds love him more than Odin ever had…

 _Baby_ , he hears the telepathic push. _Come on. Put on, uh, a brave show. You’re my King Consort, huh?_

 _I hate that name,_ Loki replies as he kisses each of the birds on the beak. _Have you started that up again?_

Once more, the laughter, and Loki has to restrain the grin as he corrects a mistake on young David’s part, and orders the birds to leave him.

**Author's Note:**

> [Hit me up on Tumblr](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/faq). Requests always open.
> 
> Just a note that requests for general Loki and Frostmaster content within the Intersections 'verse will be ignored. :) That'll probably be the case at least until the 'verse is at like, 300-400k. Requests for Loki's dynamics with actual doubles are a-okay.


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